DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- A family is in anguish after their disabled adult daughter disappeared without a trace. And they're concerned that misinformation has been a great hindrance to the investigation.
A candlelight vigil was held Tuesday for Jenna Van Geldren as her loved-ones desperately prayed for her safe return.
"It’s 12 days,” Leon Van Gelderen said.
And those 12 days, he said, have been absolute hell.
“I walk around in a fog, it's totally a fog,” Roseanne Glick said. “I start crying during the day and I wake up every day, like I said, just in a fog.”
It’s been nearly 2 weeks of anguish for the Van Gelderan family. But right now, they want to eliminate all distractions and what they say is inaccurate information that has been circulated. And it all starts with the police report that indicates that she is a prostitute
“My son never said his sister was a prostitute – never,” Leon said. “It was a disgruntled ex-boyfriend that said that.”
The report also indicates that she has gone missing before.
“Never, absolutely never - never disappeared,” Leon said. “If she ever went to South Carolina, that’s the furthest she's ever gone. We knew where she was going, who she was going to be with and she was always in contact with us.”
While the family said the investigation did not start off the way they wanted, they do now believe police have a vested interest in helping find Jenna.
Leon needs the public's help piecing together clues of Jenna's disappearance.
She was house-sitting and taking care of her parents’ sick cat when she vanished.
“Things were broken in the house, T.V., was on, the lights were on and my daughter was gone,” he said.
Also left behind were items she often used such as her cell phone battery and others family said she would never have left without.
They've since hired a private investigator hoping to follow every lead.
The family said Jenna is on the autism spectrum and is highly functioning - but vulnerable.
“She's very gullible, susceptible, enticed very easily and she doesn't perceive danger the same way the rest of us do,” Leon said.
And that's what has Roseanne worried.
“Her vulnerability is what I'm most concerned about right now,” she said.
The family is also thinking about offering a reward for information that leads to the young woman's safe return.
